


Slamming Through, I Need You

by authoressnebula (authoressjean)



Series: Raising a Big Brother [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, Episode: s03e04 Sin City, Episode: s03e05 Bedtime Stories, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Parental Bobby Singer, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester's Visions, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24828874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authoressjean/pseuds/authoressnebula
Summary: Sequel to "Just Be There", post 3x04: Sam has a vision. It's a little out of the ordinary since he hasn't had any since they killed Yellow Eyes.They're not the usual visions, though, and they're just getting worse. And there's nothing he can do about them but cling to Dean and ride them out.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Raising a Big Brother [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749589
Comments: 8
Kudos: 189





	Slamming Through, I Need You

Two days after they left the city of sin, Sam started feeling...different.  
  
Not different outside; outside, he was still Sam Winchester, standing well above most of the population (including Dean), floppy hair and button shirts with sleeves rolled to his elbows. That hadn't changed.  
  
The inside, though, was changing. Changing fast.  
  
It started with a flash through his brain. Just a bright flash of light, shooting so fast he almost thought it hadn't happened.  
  
Then the pain hit, and he was stumbling forward, grasping the small desk in the hotel room. His vision swam and he gasped for breath, trying to push through the pain that was encompassing him.  
  
Dean was out, getting breakfast. He'd kept an eye on Sam all of yesterday, asked him if he was feeling okay. Dean hadn't looked convinced when Sam had told him he was.  
  
 _Woman in a car, headed for a ravine, Oregon license plates, papers for a college class beside her in the seat. She's unconscious, blood on her temple, and her hands are held to the wheel by spectral hands. The gas is floored, and the car goes over the edge, hurtling her down more than five hundred feet. The car burns, and she doesn't stir as the flames lick at her sk_  
  
The pain filled him, narrowing his vision to a few spots on the wall, then the desk, then the floor beside him as he fell. Knives stabbed through his brain, and then something simply reached into his head and sank claws into him, and he would've screamed if he hadn't passed out.  
  


* * *

  
  
When his vision returned to him, he was still on the floor. His right knee had been bent and pulled over his straight left leg, though, and he knew his arms would be in similar state, albeit in different places. Rescue position, thanks to all the first aid their dad had shown them through the years. Which meant-  
  
“Dean?”  
  
His voice was raspy, and as soon as he talked he had to cough. When he could breathe again and see in front of him, Dean was crouched beside him. Well, laying beside him was the better term, really. Sam blinked, then blinked again. Nope: Dean really did look that freaked out. “How many fingers?” Dean asked, holding his middle three up.  
  
Sam stared at him, before saying, “Isn't that the Russian version of the bird?”  
  
Dean gave a huge sigh of relief and wiped at his face. “Thank god,” he mumbled. “You wanna try sitting up?”  
  
Sam placed his hand on the floor, but Dean had his hand on his arm before he could get any further. “Just take it slow,” Dean said softly, somehow already crouched now. His other arm went around Sam, clutching his waist and steadily pulling him to his feet.  
  
He managed to get vertical, but before he could straighten his knees, a wave of dizziness hit him, and the pain flashed through his head again, lightning fast. If Dean's reflexes hadn't been faster, Sam would've been back on the ground. “Woah, woah, _easy_ ,” Dean said, pulling Sam in close. “Just take it easy. I gotcha, all right? I gotcha.”  
  
Sam closed his eyes and worked on breathing. It wasn't working very well, but when the room didn't feel stable beneath him, and he was afraid his weak grasp on Dean was slipping, he had more important things to do than breathe. Like not falling.  
  
Finally, a soft surface, and Sam whimpered as soon as his head hit the pillow. “Just breathe through it, Sammy,” Dean murmured. He felt a hand against the side of his head, cool and strong. It helped to dull the pain.  
  
“Just...just breathe it out,” he heard a moment later, and he would've frowned if it hadn't hurt so much. Breathe _what_ out? “Just imagine the pain, and then your breath in grabbing onto it. When you breathe out, let your breath hold onto it, pull it out of you.”  
  
He'd completely forgotten about the technique his dad had taught him years ago to help with his headaches. The headaches had receded, but by that point, he'd become a true believer of pain medications. He hadn't really had a headache at Stanford, and the other visions...well, they'd faded out.  
  
Not this one.  
  
He breathed in and tried to direct the breath up through his brain to where the sharp pain kept coming from. Once he was pretty sure he had it, he exhaled and let it all out with it. After about three tries, he managed to get his eyes open.  
  
The worry in Dean's face was palpable. “I'm fine,” Sam said quietly. “I'll be...I'll be fine, Dean.”  
  
“What the _hell_ , Sammy?” Dean whispered, and there was just enough fear in his voice that Sam winced. “I come back, and you're on the frickin' _floor_ -”  
  
“Oregon,” Sam said simply. Dean stared at him. “We need to go to Oregon,” he added when Dean didn't ask anything.  
  
Dean's eyes widened. “Oh god,” he breathed. “You had a vision, didn't you?”  
  
Sam bit his lip but said nothing. He didn't need to.  
  
“Oregon,” Dean repeated, shell-shocked. “Right. I'll call Bobby, get him on it. Gimme the lowdown.”  
  
Sam frowned, then grimaced when it just made everything worse. “Dean, we've gotta get out there. We probably don't have much time as it is.”  
  
“I don't care,” Dean said firmly. “You got knocked out by this one, and you got knocked out good. You're gonna take it easy, I'm gonna make sure you do, and Bobby'll find another hunter who's closer out there, anyways. We're in Indiana, Sam. We wouldn't make it out in time.”  
  
“We could try,” Sam attempted. “It's not worth this woman dying.”  
  
“My way's more effective, though,” Dean said, raising his eyebrow at Sam. “And it's not worth you getting hurt any more. I'm calling Bobby: end of story.”  
  
Sam sighed and let his gaze drift back over to the wall. He was really fine to travel; the pain wouldn't be that bad. Just get him in the car with the leather seats and the cold windows and the bumpy roads-  
  
Okay. So maybe Dean had a point.  
  
Dean went outside for a bit to make the call, then puttered around inside on the computer, but it wasn't until he came over to rest his palm against Sam's forehead again that Sam actually fall asleep.  
  


* * *

  
  
“ _Fairytales_?”  
  
Sam held up his hands in surrender. It sounded as...well, fantastical as it sounded. “Swear to god,” Dean said at the incredulous look Bobby was giving them. “She was playing out her favorite fairytales, except with a modern backdrop and a healthy penchant for death and blood.”  
  
“Every time I think I've heard it all,” Bobby muttered. Sam exchanged a small grin with Dean; they knew how he felt.  
  
Thinking about the spirit they'd just let go, though, made Sam only think of what Dean had asked him to do. Let him go. His smile fell, but thankfully Dean had already turned back to Bobby. “Car's been rattling, and I can't find it. Would you mind looking?”  
  
“Never do,” Bobby said. “Sam, I've got some books you might be interested in. Up on the top shelf there.” He gave a nod to the shelf in question, and Sam gave him a grateful nod back. He had no doubt that the books were about crossroad deals.  
  
Dean gave them a funny look but only followed Bobby outside. As soon as the front door shut behind them, Sam headed to the bookshelf and pulled them down. Three books total, and his heart leapt with hope. Maybe. Just maybe.  
  
He set them down on the kitchen table, then stepped over to the sink to wash his hands. Older texts required a bit more care than most  
  
 _A man stands on the edge of the ravine, staring down below him. Above, a voice whispers in the wind, and the man steps impossibly closer, scattering pebbles down down down far below him. “My bidding,” the voice whispers._  
  
“-am? You all right?”  
  
Sam found that he was panting harshly, his hands clutching the counter hard enough to hurt. Bobby was standing in the doorway, frowning at him. “Sam?” he asked again, his frown deepening.  
  
“Get Dean,” Sam managed to get out. “Please, Bobby, get Dean, I need him-”  
  
 _The man closes his eyes and steps over, falling like a stone. He hits the bottom at top speed, pushing the air from his lungs and the blood from his body. His body is twisted all wrong, the bones broken and contorted. “My bidding,” the voice calls again._  
  
“Sam?!”  
  
Sam's hands were on his head, clutching at his skull now. He whimpered and stumbled backwards as the pain shot through his head. Blinding lights and the world shaking too fast, too harshly, and Sam felt like he was going to throw up or pass out.  
  
 _The man's body suddenly jerks, and his sightless eyes turn to face forward. “My bidding,” he whispers, blood pouring from his mouth. “You who are dead will do my bidding.”_  
  
The pain engulfed him, his vision tunneled into nothing, the voice in his vision pounding alongside his blood in his ears.  
  
The last thing he felt before blackness overtook him were strong arms catching and holding him.  
  


* * *

  
  
When he came to, the room was shrouded in darkness. He could faintly hear crickets outside, and when he blinked enough times to get his vision settled, he found himself staring into a black sky with only tiny pinpricks of light within it. The clock on the nightstand said that it was 9:34. PM, obviously.  
  
They'd pulled into Bobby's around noon. God.  
  
Slowly Sam pushed himself up, taking deep breaths to stave off the reappearing nausea. Then he stood, slowly as he dared. One step at a time, and thank god he knew exactly where he was: the downstairs guest room at Bobby's. He didn't think he could handle the stairs right now.  
  
He carefully made his way out to the living room, resting against the walls for a short period of time, before moving on. Voices were murmuring something in front of him, and he followed them in to find Dean and Bobby at the kitchen table. Dean looked freaked. Again.  
  
“...were supposed to _end_ , Bobby. He can't keep doing this. They were getting worse last year, but not to the extent that he'd pass out. But they were tied in with Yellow-Eyes, and he's gone, so what the hell-”  
  
The floor beneath Sam creaked, and both heads whipped up to see him in the doorway. Sam gave a sheepish smile. “Hi,” he said weakly.  
  
Dean was up and out of his chair before Sam could blink. “You call me when you wake up, you don't stumble around on your own,” Dean said, but his arm wrapped around Sam's waist, then guided him over to a chair. “Sit and stay,” he ordered, before turning to Bobby's coffee machine.  
  
“You look like hell,” Bobby told Sam while Dean was busy.  
  
“About what I feel like,” Sam murmured, before he closed his eyes. A moment later, a firm but gentle hand fell on his shoulder, and a mug was placed in his hand. Sam smiled and opened his eyes to the coffee waiting for him, then took a small sip. Two creams, no sugar. Just the way Sam liked it.  
  
“You wanna tell us what you saw?” Dean asked, but didn't sit down or move his hand. Sam set the mug on the table and reached up to his brother's hand, squeezing it for a second. _I'm okay_ and _I know you're there_ were conveyed with the simple move, and Dean sat down as Sam began his story.  
  
“Same ravine, same freaky mind control stuff,” Dean said after, raising his eyebrow. Sam nodded.  
  
Bobby shook his head. “You boys know what you're dealin' with, don't you?”  
  
“Necromancer would be my guess,” Sam said, even as Dean nodded firmly.  
  
“I'm betting that both of those people were dead before what you saw happened...happened,” Dean finished lamely. “So we've got a case of a Necromancer in a town somewhere in Oregon. How come it's messing with Sam's psychic lines?”  
  
Bobby began to speak, then stopped. Sam finished the thought for him. “Because I was dead, Dean,” he said as gently as he could. “That means that my abilities were... _are_...wide open for him to play with. Flesh once dead is still open game for them, even if the flesh is now moving again. Maybe those people weren't dead; maybe they'd died before and been brought back.”  
  
“CPR would do the trick,” Bobby supplied, and Sam nodded.  
  
“A psychic would be someone he could use,” he said quietly. The thought of someone using him for his powers made his stomach twist and turn. This stuff was supposed to be _over_. They'd ended the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Enough was enough already.  
  
When Sam glanced over at Dean, he saw the same helpless frustration in his face. Besides that, however, there was a growing fury that Sam only truly witnessed occasionally. That type of fury only came out when Sam was not only threatened, but put in the line of danger and hurt.  
  
“We're going to Oregon,” Dean said, his voice dangerously low.  
  


* * *

  
  
It was when they were about an hour out from their destination that Sam got hit with another vision. Dean parked them in the first hotel he passed, then practically carried Sam into the room. His brother was silent and pliable, and it almost made Dean think he was dead again. He was as limp as he'd been just a few months ago.  
  
He pressed his fingers to Sam's pulse points, just to make sure. Still beating, still breathing. Dean decided to start researching all the local deaths and grave vandalizing that was sure to have occurred during the past couple of months. He'd get dinner so Sam could eat something when he got up, and then maybe Sam's latest vision could help him find the sonuvabitch.  
  
Because messing with Sam meant that they messed with Dean. And when someone hurt Sam...  
  
All lines were crossed, and Dean didn't hold anything back. Not with his little brother's safety on the line.  
  
Sam didn't wake up at dinnertime. Sam wasn't awake the next morning. By the afternoon, Dean was sliding into panic mode, which meant he'd pace before hurrying to Sam's bedside and tapping his shoulder, attempting to get a response.  
  
By the next morning, Sam still hadn't awakened. Dean sat down in the nearby chair and ran his fingers through his hair, bloodshot eyes locked on Sam. No movements, nothing. Still a pulse, though, because he'd just checked.  
  
This had to end.  
  
A shifting of the sheets, and then an almost silent whimper. Almost silent, but not totally, and Dean rose immediately. “Sammy?” he asked softly, crouching by his brother's side. “You with me kiddo?”  
  
Sam managed to get his eyes open, then closed them again, tighter than before. Not tight enough to keep tears from slowly making their way down his face. “Hurts,” he whispered. “Dean, hurts.”  
  
“Just breathe through it,” Dean said, biting his lip. God, there wasn't anything he could _do_. He raised his hands to touch Sam, a shoulder, cool hand on his forehead, something. But from the look on Sam's face, it was just going to hurt more than it was going to help. He left his hands hanging in the air uselessly. God but he hated this.  
  
Yeah, it was a lesson he'd learned years ago from his dad: you can't always help someone. Dean couldn't always help Sam. And that just _killed_.  
  
Maybe he should get some aspirin or something for him. Or maybe a cool cloth for his head. Dean waited another moment, then lowered his hands to the bed to gently push himself up.  
  
Sam's hand slid out from underneath the covers, trembling, and covered Dean's hand.  
  
Dean paused, half-standing, gazing at his little brother. He was breathing in and out deeply, his eyes still closed. His face was tight with tension and pain, both of which Dean knew couldn't be helping the headache. He slid back down to his knees and turned his hand so he could grasp Sam's in his. This was all he could do; just be there.  
  
From the way Sam's face relaxed, maybe it was enough.  
  
He'd find the Necromancer tomorrow, and the visions would stop with his death. Sam would rest for a few days, then suggest a job he'd seen about a ghost ship on the coast. They'd pack up and head out after letting Bobby know it was finished.  
  
The one thing that wouldn't change, though, was Dean standing by Sam's side.


End file.
